International Education

Ready for the world

Cambridge stands at the forefront of international education, drawing on insights from our global community of schools, teachers, learners and researchers to equip students for a changing world.

We have achieved record growth over the year, expanding our global community of schools, increasing the demand for international education offerings and maintaining our position as market leader across all categories. Our overall performance remains strong.

Our June 2025 exam series exceeded expectations, with higher candidate numbers and an impressive 89 percent of our school leavers securing university placements this year.

Listening to lead: developing our global community

Our record-breaking year has been driven by our unwavering commitment to fostering the world’s most trusted community for teaching, learning and assessment. With over 10,000 schools worldwide proudly identifying as Cambridge schools, we have focused on strengthening these connections through active engagement and support.

Our collaborative approach involves developing solutions in partnership with our community, rather than imposing standards. This strategy enables us to create adaptable solutions tailored to local needs and support teachers in challenging environments, including those where English is a second language.

This year we have hosted numerous regional conclaves, bringing together school leaders, exam officers, teachers and career counsellors for professional development events and to share best practice. In India alone, our conclave welcomed over 470 school leader from over 300 schools.

“We believe fundamentally that high-quality education should be available to more people. We are making the Cambridge curriculum more equitable and more accessible to more students.”

Rod Smith, Group Managing Director, International Education

Future-ready learners Initiative

Together with our global community, we are shaping the future of international education through our ambitious consultation initiative launched this year. With responses from 3,500 teachers and 4,000 students – 900 of whom have expressed interest in ongoing collaboration – we launched our landmark Navigating the future: Preparing learners to thrive in a changing world report, published in September 2025, which set out the vision and strategy for the future of international education, drawing on those community insights.

Cambridge Conversations

The Cambridge Conversations programme is a cornerstone of our commitment to collaboratively define how international education can prepare future-ready learners for a rapidly changing world. Through engaging discussions with influential thought leaders, educators and experts, we are gathering diverse perspectives on the future of education.

Cambridge Conversations exemplifies our dedication to inclusive dialogue that shapes the future of education and supports our core mission of helping young people be ‘ready for the world’, while ensuring our curriculum remains relevant amid geopolitical shifts and technological advancements.

Cambridge International Schools’ growth in India

Our philosophy that international education should be ‘as international as necessary, but as local as possible’ has driven our success in regions like South Asia, where this year we have proudly reached a total of 1,055 Cambridge schools, making us the third largest educational board in India.

Our India success story showcases Cambridge’s evolution to becoming a comprehensive educational partner. We have expanded beyond traditional metropolitan centres into many other cities, making quality education more broadly available through affordable approaches.

As part of our five-year strategic plan in South Asia, we have:

Launched the Cambridge Connection Bridge Course to prevent student attrition by bridging the Cambridge IGCSE curriculum to the national entrance exam requirements for engineering, medicine and law
Joined India’s One Nation, One Subscription initiative, expanding academic research journal access from 100 to 1,000 institutions
Created pre-service teacher development programmes with universities to build teaching capacity
Partnered with Bhutan’s government for a five-year curriculum transformation project that maintains local culture, while elevating educational standards

Addressing teacher shortages in South Asia

Cambridge has made tackling the global teacher shortage a cornerstone of its international education strategy, recognising that supporting educators is essential to building the world’s most trusted teaching, learning and assessment community.

Our commitment is particularly evident in our work in South Asia, where we now work with over 1,000 schools, and where it is estimated that 50,000 more teachers are needed. We are addressing teacher shortages nationally with the rollout of an innovative pre-service teacher training programme, just twelve months since it was conceived.

Our initiative targets the entry-level teacher pipeline, helping fresh graduates develop modern teaching skills that traditional university curricula often lack, including classroom engagement techniques and digital transformation skills.

The six-month immersive programme is followed by internships at Cambridge International Schools and leads to a joint qualification from us and our partner universities. The first student intake of the initial pilot phase took place in July 2025.

The model has already generated interest from governments in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan, who see it as an effective approach to teacher workforce development.

“We are connecting employability, training, global certification and national recognition all into one programme. It’s the fastest that Cambridge has ever rolled out a product.”

Arun Rajamani, Managing Director for South Asia

Regional developments and achievements

Our work in Australia continues to excel, and we are now the market leader in secondary education, with robust growth in mathematics and expansion in science and humanities. We have also seen positive growth in China, the USA and Pakistan.

Cambridge’s vision for AI in education

We are pioneering a thoughtful approach to AI in education, developing solutions that empower teachers, rather than replace them. Our comprehensive Guide to AI in Education exemplifies our commitment to supporting our global community of 10,000 schools as they navigate technological change.

Our AI vision places teachers firmly in the loop, balancing artificial intelligence with human intelligence to enhance educational outcomes. Together with our schools, we are shaping how AI can support student wellbeing and develop future-ready learners in a rapidly changing world.

Early Years: building strong foundations

In its second year, our Early Years programme continues to experience significant growth, expanding its educational pathway to now span ages 3 to 19. This success reflects our commitment to providing a complete, coherent educational experience for learners worldwide.

By extending our educational approach to early childhood, we are ensuring more students develop the skills needed to be ready for the world, while maintaining the flexibility that allows schools to implement our curriculum in locally relevant ways.